


Tasting Blood From Your Mouth to Mine

by mynameisnemo



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Bi-Polar, Blood, Depression, M/M, Season 4 Spoilers, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 20:26:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1578449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mynameisnemo/pseuds/mynameisnemo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows that every drop of spilled blood was worth it, so long as he has Ian there laughing through a bloody smile along with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tasting Blood From Your Mouth to Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Some misogynistic language. Not the view of the author.

If you asked Mickey Milkovich what love tasted like he would say blood. 

It was there the first time he ran into the coffee table as a hyperactive toddler; bloodying his nose and making him scream even as his mom picked him up and held one of Terry's dirty shirts to his face, soothing him by singing 'Hey Jude' like her mother used to do with her. 

It was there when he held a tiny Mandy, as the new baby, new girl, new little sister that he has to protect, pitched into him and knocked his loose front tooth out onto his tongue. 

It was there the first time he ran from the cops, when a drug deal turned into a drug bust, and Terry punched him in the face for making him go back for him. 

It was there when Iggy and Jamie pulled him out of the car they drunkenly crashed while trying to teach him how to drive.

It was there when he bit into his lip trying not to cry at his mom's funeral. 

After his dad pistol whips him in front of Ian he wonders how he could have ever thought that love wouldn't leave a copper taste in his mouth. 

He thinks about the sweet taste of Ian's spit and Mountain Dew, or beer and nicotine, and skin sweaty from the summer heat and wonders if it really was love. 

He tries to ignore Ian, tries to walk away, walk away from the anger and terror burning under his skin. From the sick feeling in his stomach and the acid taste in his mouth every time he closes his eyes and sees the look on Ian's face in their living room as that Russian bitch moved on top of him. 

Ian throws the empty bottle and it startles him into speaking, but still he tries to walk away. Ian has always been an annoying fuck though, never knows when to stop. Mickey wonders how the Gallaghers do it; they are all like that, noisy and happy and demanding attention. But then, they had Frank for a dad, not Terry. 

He tries to walk away but Ian won't quit. So he tries to teach him what love tastes like. How it feels. 

_You love me. And you're gay._

After he walks away he starts seeing Ian laying bloody in the dirt when he closes his eyes. 

The day he gets married to a woman who has never made him taste blood, who he will never love, he kisses Ian so hard he splits one of their lips. For a second he tastes copper and thinks that he can do this He can marry Svetlana but keep Ian and everything will be OK. Then Ian says he's leaving and he says _”Four years. Minimum.”_ and Mickey can only hear rushing in his head that feels like when he hit his head on the dashboard when they wrecked the car, when Terry pistol whipped him, like the first concussion he gave himself falling down the front steps. He tastes pennies in his mouth under the warm beer and feels like he's choking on it when he says _”Don't.”_ Can't get it out of his throat when he tries to make Ian stop. 

When he checks, after Mandy leaves, spitting on the floor in his room, there's no blood. 

\- - - 

For weeks after Ian leaves he wakes in the middle of the night, panting and sweaty, next to his Russian whore of a wife while she sleeps on. 

He dreams of Ian laying bloody in the dirt but this time he's dressed in uniform and the blood is coming from his chest, not his mouth. His eyes aren't squeezed shut and wet with tears, they are staring blankly ahead, lifeless. 

Mickey starts going to The Alibi more after that. 

He thinks he has things under control, he's settled into the distractions of his new life and he thinks the taste of blood will start to fade eventually. Then Mandy slams open the door to the bathroom and he knows this time he has to take the risk. 

He gets dressed, tries to look nice, takes the badge from his drawer on a whim, spends the whole day tracking Ian down; but when he sees the glassy eyes, hears how dead he sounds, Mickey wonders if it's a new kind of dream. The kind of dream where he doesn't lose Ian to bleeding out on the sand in some country that Mickey has no chance of ever going to, instead he has to see Ian fade away into nothing, into something he can't even recognise anymore, and he has to keep watching it happen in front of his eyes. 

He takes Ian home, hopes he sleeps off whatever he took that's making his eyes so glassy, his voice so flat, but then Svetlana tells him he's gone and for a heart stopping moment Mickey thinks she means _gone_. 

He goes to the Gallagher house later, goes right upstairs to see Ian, make sure that he's really still there, still breathing, and quickly gets immersed in Gallagher style drama. 

Ian says _“Relationship issues.”_ and Mickey can feel Lip staring at him. After the kids leave he thinks he might bite through his lip again, worrying at it as he tries to ask Ian if this can be fixed. 

He sucks Ian's dick, knowing that letting Ian get his way costs him nothing but it might get him everything. Sex has always been meaningless to him. Well, not meaningless, not with Ian, but it's an easy negotiating tool nonetheless, and maybe Ian feels like it gives him control again to have Mickey on his knees, doing what he says. 

The following days do nothing to prove that something isn't wrong with Ian but he wonders if maybe this isn't just the new Ian. 

They kiss in the club and Mickey doesn't taste blood but making out with a crowd full of people, some of them even appreciatively staring at them, he wonders if maybe the way his shoulders suddenly feel lighter is the same way that Ian feels all the time now. 

They go to the loft and he's never felt more out of place, never felt more out of control of a situation, but he looks at Ian, talking to one of the other guys there about one of the photographs and he realises he feels happy. He feels safe, no matter how out of his league he is. He doesn't have to hide who he is here and no one else cares what he does or who he sticks his dick in. He falls asleep with Ian on the pull out couch and wakes up startled but with Ian there. 

He's starting to feel settled again, he doesn't know what he's going to do with Svetlana and Mandy and he doesn't know when it started being the chicks in his life that were making it hard instead of the dudes, but he's got it under control. He gives Svetlana the money and doesn't immediately deck Kev in the face and listens to Ian even as he says he's going to use an assault rifle to teach Ball some respect. 

Then Ian almost slits Kenyatta's throat and Mickey feels everything start sliding away from him again. Ian doesn't answer about the drugs, just heads to the hospital, and Mickey wants to tackle him, pin him to the icy sidewalk and yell until Ian tells him what the fuck is wrong. He lets Ian walk away and kicks the snowbank instead because seriously, fuck the Gallaghers. He's never met people so selfishly wrapped up in their own drama and bullshit. 

He shows up later, after he cools off, just in time to see Sheila and Frank get married and the doctors come in to take Frank off for a liver transplant, and he decides he's had enough for one day, drags Ian off to the house to go to bed. 

The next morning he wakes in the bed, he's done sleeping on the floor, he's not old enough for his back to hurt the way it has been and it's not like he can't just punch Carl in the face if he says something about it. Carl is standing in the hall, talking to Ian about him and he kind of wants to put the kid down the laundry chute but settles for taking a piss instead. 

Ian shows at the baptism, sits in the bar like a pissed off shadow while Mickey deals with Svetlana and her bullshit and the kid, and Mickey doesn't know why the stupid fuck is making this so hard. He wants to push Ian into a wall, slam their mouths together and show him that he does care, he does want Ian there, but then his dad walks in the door and Mickey jerks away, his heart in his throat as he wonders if Terry saw just how close he was standing to Ian. 

He does a shot in honour of his kid, of his prick of a father getting out of prison again, and does everything he can to keep his eyes off of Ian sitting at the bar, even when he thinks he sees a tear slide down the kid's freckled face. 

Ian stays quiet for a little while but soon enough he's back up in Mickey's face, telling him what a pussy he is, telling him that this is it, and Mickey knows he's not going to kick Ian's ass but that doesn't mean he wants to stand there and let Ian tell him he's a coward. 

He's watching Ian tell him he's leaving and he's talking, saying something about not caring, but he keeps hearing Ian say he's joining the army, turning and walking out the door, and he's tasting the ghost of a _“Don't.”_ that wasn't enough last time. 

He doesn't know where he gets the courage to slap on the bar and demand everyone pay attention to him, doesn't know what he's going to say when he opens his mouth, but hears the words come out anyway. 

_”I just want everyone here to know, I'm fucking gay.”_

He can't meet his dad's eyes but he can meet Ian's where he's standing in the door and he feels like it's partially because he's doing it for Ian but also to spite him. To show Ian what happens when you love someone. 

It's quiet for a moment after he finishes talking, the music starting up again and people keep on with their conversations. He almost thinks nothing's going to happen, that maybe he was wrong and he doesn't have to constantly watch over his shoulder. Then Terry's coming at him like a seriously pissed off bull and he doesn't think at all, just punches him as hard as he can in the face. 

It's short and fast and Mickey has never been able to stand up to his dad when he's angry. It's not that he doesn't have the guts, it's that Terry doesn't go down, doesn't stay down. He punches him, pushes him, breaks a bottle over his head, but that doesn't stop the vertigo, the inevitability of the feeling of being swung around and slammed into the floor. He bounces his head off the hardwood and has a brief flash of amusement, of _'this again, haven't we done this?'_ , and then he feels his dad's fist slam into his face one, twice, three times, and he loses touch with the world for a second. 

He feels Terry disappear, feels the weight leave his chest and the punches stop coming. The black spots clear his vision and he coughs, trying to breathe through the blood that's running down his nose into his mouth. He looks around and sees Ian buried under three of his uncles, fighting like a complete lunatic, and he dives back in. He lands only a few good punches, kicks Terry in the chest, and pulls someone, he doesn't know who, off Ian. He's back on the ground, trading body blows and headbutts with his dad again when the cops come busting through the door and grabbing at people, shouting questions, and Mickey figures it's pretty par for the course that they determine Terry and him to be at fault. 

He's so hopped up on adrenaline he doesn't know what he's yelling when they're cuffing him and his dad. He just knows it feels fucking great, laying over the cop car with blood up his nose and in his eyes and heavy on his tongue, to declare to all the world that he couldn't be happier than he is when he's taking it from Ian. It's yelling the biggest fuck you in a long line of fuck you's to tell anyone who can hear him who he really is. 

The cop uncuffs him and he almost tilts over, the weight of the handcuffs disappearing. He's not asking any favours for being gay, he didn't even ask to be gay in the first place, but that doesn't mean he's not grateful when the cop turns around and walks off. Ian flips his dad off and then turns and hands him his coat and he feels dizzy with the come down and too many blows to the head in a short span of time. 

“Kev said he'd rather we not come back in tonight. He's gotta sweep up all the glass and talk to the cops so he's closing early.” 

Mickey nods, then wishes he hadn't, stepping to the side to plant his ass on one of the cars parked at the curb. He's so tired suddenly, the adrenaline completely gone, and he doesn't even know how he's going to have the energy to walk home. He doesn't know where he's going to go or what he's going to do, not sure if he's safe or not even though his uncles just laugh and nod and walk away. Even though he's still alive, and still out of jail, and hey, now he's out of the closet too. He feels like he's out of gas and takes the flask from Ian with hands that aren't shaking but might not be able to make proper fists for a few days either. 

Then Ian's making jokes and they're both laughing and suddenly he remembers why he's done what he did. The sight of Ian sitting there, blood on his face and his hair sticking up and his eyes squinted shut in laughter and pain, reminds Mickey of all the other times he's tasted copper, reminds him of how many times he's felt something so big it feels like it's going to come out of his chest, and he knows that every drop of spilled blood was worth it, so long as he has Ian there laughing through a bloody smile along with him. 

\- - - 

Even when he thinks of it years later Mickey always thinks about that day as the day Ian wouldn't get up. He's never seen Ian sick before but at first he just thinks maybe he's an asshole when he doesn't feel well. By 5pm he's getting worried and when Ian tells him to leave him the fuck alone he feels his stomach drop. He knows something is badly wrong but he still can't figure out what it is. Ian's always had energy, so much that Mickey sometimes felt like maybe he should slip some tranqs into whatever Ian's drinking. He's never known the kid to just lay in bed, or lay anywhere. If he's not dancing or running or yammering his mouth off at a mile a minute he's dropping to the floor and doing pushups or hanging from the closest ledge to do pull ups. This lethargy is scaring the shit out of him and he doesn't know how to handle it. 

When Debbie tells him she knows what's going on he can't help but feel relieved but that quickly sours in his stomach as both Carl and Debbie start crying. They tell him they need to talk to Lip before they can say for sure and leave for the night, holding Liam's hands between theirs as they walk down the snowy sidewalk away from his house and he wonders if maybe he should walk them home but he doesn't know how he can leave Ian alone in their dark room again, even just for the quick walk to the Gallagher house and back. 

Fiona shows up the next morning, all three of the little ones in tow and he didn't even know she was out of the joint yet but he's glad to see her. Irrationally, it's not like she's ever done him any favours, he feels like maybe she can make this better. Then she says Ian might have to go to the hospital and Mickey feels like hitting her. He doesn't know why he has to explain this to a Gallagher of all people but he knows Ian can't leave. Can't go to some cuckoo's nest for who the fuck knows how long. He knows it's stupid but he keeps feeling like the next time Ian walks away will be the last and where the fuck does that leave him? 

He tells Fiona they're going to fix it, tells her that she's going to help, but he can already feel her ducking out, squirming away from the responsibility that she willingly took on to watch out for her sisters and brothers. He's never been sure how she does it, knows he isn't the oldest so maybe that's what it is, but it's not like any of the older Milkovich boys have ever tried to really be there for him or Mandy during the tough shit. Maybe that kind of love is why the Gallaghers have always acted like they're better than the Milkoviches but all he sees is her turning her back on Ian, leaving to go to some meeting, and he doesn't expect to see her darken his door for a while. 

After she leaves he goes back to the room. It's cold in there, even with the heat turned up in the house for the baby, and dark. Ian isn't sleeping, his breath isn't deep enough for that, but he's not talking either. Not moving. Mickey sits on the bed for a while, staring at the lump of blankets rising and falling, then gets up and goes outside. One of the brothers had installed a punching bag on the backporch and he beats it until he splits his already scraped knuckles. Hits and kicks and throws himself against it until he breaks the scab on his lip and feels blood trickle down his chin. 

Mandy is standing in the doorway when he turns to go back inside. She hands him a cigarette and looks so worried he wants to hug her, even though he doesn't even begin to pretend to know what to do with the feeling. After he gets his breath back he wipes the blood from his face onto his sleeve and straightens his shoulders. He said he was going to take care of this, said Ian was going to stay with him and he was going to fix it. Mickey's never been good at helpless, never been backed into a corner he wasn't ready to come swinging out of. He doesn't guess this is going to be the first time for it either. 

He can taste the blood slowly leaking out of the cut on his lip and it tastes like copper and pain and worry but it also tastes like a promise. A promise to Ian and a promise to himself. They're going to get through this, he's going to make sure of it.

**Author's Note:**

> I've read through this a few times but I'm high on decongestants so it's probably terribly written. Feel free to point out any mistakes, etc.


End file.
